America's Failed High Speed Train - Budd Metroliner
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- Опубликовано: 22 май 2024
- How Do! :D
In this long-form video, we take a look at a train that has long held my fascination, both for a mixture of what it got right and what it got wrong, the Budd Metroliner being a seldom remembered part of America's railroading history, but was in fact a catalogue of missed opportunities, though even in the midst of its overall failure, this train would form the basis of one of Amtrak's main pieces of rolling stock, and still lives on to this day in other forms.
During the 1960s, the railways of the world were taken by surprise when Japan delivered the first dedicated high speed service between Tokyo and Osaka, a viable means of transporting passengers between major urban centres that could combat both domestic airlines and motorways alike, thus leading to a slew of facsimiles being adopted, ranging from major successes like the TGV of France, to significant failures like the APT of Great Britain.
However, a seldom remembered failure of this high speed trend during the 1960s was the Budd Metroliner, which was at one time America's fastest passenger train that had the potential to reach 160mph, and under tests proved it could obtain this goal, while at the same time providing a superb bodyshell with comfort and quality that even led to its own derivative range of coaching stock.
Sadly, the Budd Metroliner was very much a flawed idea from its conception, the main problems being a lack of infrastructure upgrades, a deficit in technological prowess and knowledge within the railway builders of the country, no dedicated high speed lines with which to avoid slow moving freight trains or commuter services, an exceptionally strict timescale set by Congress, and a general ambivalence towards the notion of high speed trains by the various governments that oversaw its creation, reflected in that the Budd Metroliner project received only a fraction of the funds and technical input necessary to deliver when compared to military projects being delivered to fight the concurrent Vietnam War.
Chapters:
0:00 - Preamble
1:40 - The Birth of High Speed Trains
4:14 - Creating the Project
7:48 - The Compromises Begin
10:33 - Underfunded and Short on Time
14:38 - Demonstrators, not Prototypes
18:03 - Into Troubled Testing
22:23 - The Project Stops, Then Starts Again
25:45 - Finally Into Service
28:22 - Problems and Problems
30:15 - Amtrak Arrives
33:40 - Replacing Brand New Trains
36:30 - The End of the Budd Metroliner
38:25 - Further Derivatives
41:07 - A Failure Decades in the Making
46:19 - A Low Priority Project
51:00 - Conclusion
I would like to give a special thanks to those who have very kindly allowed me permission to use their footage, which can be found at the following links:
- Don Oltmann: • DO 010 Metroliner 3 28...
- 1990s Railfan: • Metro North SPV-2000s....
- Railroad Media Archive: • Princeton Jct New Jers...
- Railroad Media Archive: • PRR New York Penn Stat...
- Hunter Lohse: • The Northeast Corridor...
All video content and images in this production have been provided with permission wherever possible. While I endeavour to ensure that all accreditations properly name the original creator, some of my sources do not list them as they are usually provided by other, unrelated RUclipsrs. Therefore, if I have mistakenly put the accreditation of 'Unknown', and you are aware of the original creator, please send me a personal message at my Gmail (this is more effective than comments as I am often unable to read all of them): rorymacveigh@gmail.com
The views and opinions expressed in this video are my personal appraisal and are not the views and opinions of any of these individuals or bodies who have kindly supplied me with footage and images.
If you enjoyed this video, why not leave a like, and consider subscribing for more great content coming soon.
Thanks again, everyone, and enjoy! :D
References:
- American-Rails.com (and their respective sources)
- "High-speed rail and barriers to innovation: The Budd Company and the limits of US indirect industrial policy in the 1960s and 1970s" by Jonathan Michael Feldman (and his respective sources)
- "Moonshots to Nowhere? The Metroliner and Failed High-Speed Rail in the United States, 1962-1977" by David Reinecke (and his respective sources)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references) 
Авто/Мото
If the American transport industry is good at anything, it's spending an obscene amount of money to re-invent the wheel, only to realize that they built a hexagon, and then spending decades and even more money trying to smooth out the corners.
It was kind of Linden because he was rushing it a lot because of the funds that they report into it. These cars were really modern for their time. They were good people are like oh it was a hexagon, and the only reason why. 0 series in Japan took off is because it’s route is fully grade separated from other lines it’s made in long short lines so we can hit higher speed even though the trains are literally boxes with round plane noises on the front now I bet if they would have also put some articulated bogies and air cushion springs the meters could’ve been hitting speed that the trains were doing in Japan on already old infrastructure
Hell, that's the US government as a whole!! It's absurd how much our tax dollars are wasted yearly.
@@SMichaelDeHartMeanwhile, at the same time, NASA were preparing to launch to the moon … mind you, they had the help of a few German scientists… maybe the MAGA crowd need some help from abroad too !! The Yanks are not going to do it on their own !
Inventing wheel inevitable.
Its that first person tough bendable Ash for wagon wheel spokes. First automobile frames, Woody station wagon body paneling, tool handles, golf club, night stick, boat oars, flag pole, Electric guitar,, judges gavel, ping-pong paddles, bow and arrow,, sailboat…
Everybody’s Favorite “cut off live tree and burn”
firewood,
As a Brit it sounds like you have learned well from us I'd say
52 minutes??? *puts kettle on, plumps cushions
Yes, me too !!!
As a disillusioned American, I’ve always found the Metroliner to be a fascinating moment in time. It was a moment of cognitive dissonance where America both (a) couldn’t abide falling behind Japan in something and (b) tacitly admitted to itself that it didn’t actually care about being number #1.
I took the Metroliner from NYC to Baltimore and DC, and to Boston, in the 1970’s.
Even 20, 25 years ago, I had trouble making Americans recognise that the US is no longer Number 1 in everything, and that this was then a relatively recent development. At one time, the US had the longest bridges & tunnels, the highest skyscrapers, and the fastest trains, but fell behind in all of these categories of engineering feats.
It is my impression that today, even the most "patriotic" Americans recognise that the US is no longer No. 1 in many fields (though they still aren't aware in just how many fields and how significant developments were in other countries).
The original Shinkansen Series 0 train sets were literally at the "bleeding edge" of rail technology because nobody had built an electrical multiple unit (EMU) train that could travel faster than 200 km/h (124 mph) on a steady basis. It did help the Shinkansen that the system used a completely separate line from regular trains, so they avoided the issue of compatibility with slower trains.
I wonder what it takes to restart the slate of American railroad development. I'm interested into developing R&D for an all American HSR platform considering the notes of Siemens and Alstrom. Just short on the funds and experience of course.
There are two reasons why the U.S. did not make high speed rail work in the 1960s and 1970s.
A. Fares were set solely by mileage. Fares could not vary with time, date, expected demand, and ridership between points.
B. Around 1968, the Post Office canceled most contracts with the railroads. Passenger trains that had been marginally profitable became money losers.
Some still believe that the airlines had bribed the Post Office or officials in the Johnson administration.
The other problem is that unlike Japan and Europe, passenger trains in the U.S. have always shared tracks with freight trains. The idea of building a separate rail network for high speed passenger trains was far too costly for the railroads, and too many people would have objected.
My wife's grandpa was an engineer with Westinghouse Airbrake/WABTEC from 1944 until 2 weeks before his death in 2018. This video brought up one of my favorite stories that he told us: Soon after he started work, in the late 40's, he was part of a team testing disk brakes on rail cars. His group manned a dynamometer car attached to a specially-equipped freight car on a track along the Mississippi. The locomotive got them up to over 100mph and then released them to operate and study the brakes.
That's so cool!
Unfortunately, as good people like that start to fade away more and more, we start being told by more recent generations that cool and unique things that old timers tell us about never happened, just because they weren't photographed or written down. Thus, the stories fall into myth rather than fond tales. . .
But as a good old friend of mine likes to say - "If someone tells you something couldn't or never happened on the railroad, it probably happened!" 😁
So remember his stories fondly, friend!
@@mamarussellthepie3995 What the heck are you talking bout?
You not being aware of their existence does not imply a conspiracy by "younger generations" to keep information from you.
Google "rail dynamometer car", you'll find hundreds of pages with photos, descriptions and locations of museums where they have such cars on display.
"The locomotive got them up to over 100mph and then released them to operate and study the brakes."
Your good story seems to have been truncated.
74 years as an engineer seems like an impressive feat. At some point he had to have been the last pre-Silent Generation individual on their roster. I doubt I could work into my nineties, even if I had to.
@@DiamondKingStudios We figured out that he was almost certainly the last person in industry to have had shared coworkers with George Westinghouse. I asked him specifically once and, when he started, there were still some old guys around who'd worked with George.
Considering the whole project was given ~$73 million of funding and just 3 years, as opposed to the billions and 5+ years needed to build the first Shinkansen or TGV lines, it’s no wonder the Metroliner never lived up to its potential. Even if development hadn’t been rushed, the infrastructure wasn’t up to the task. The most frustrating part is that the project could've still easily still beaten the Shinkansen even if they'd settled for a less ambitious speed: the 0 series was only capable of 210KPH (130MPH) until being rebuilt in the 1980s, and operated at 200KPH (125MPH) until then as well. So the 150MPH requirement was completely unnecessary, let alone the 164MPH they were actually capable of.
That said, considering the British spent basically the same amount on the APT program and didn’t even get a serviceable train for it, things could certainly have been much worse. Frankly, it's a miracle the trains didn't have more issues, and I'm not sure why Ruairidh is being so hard on Budd: they developed a train faster than the Shinkansen 0 series on basically the same budget, a compressed time scale, and without any prior experience. Sure, the tradeoff is they weren't that reliable by American standards, but 27% out of service rate isn't that bad compared to a lot of electric stock of the era, even ones that weren't as cutting-edge, and as the 8 fully-rebuilt cars showed, the problems were clearly fixable if not for lack of money.
EDIT: One clarification to make in the video. The Metroliner cab cars will no longer be replaced by the Airo trainsets from Siemens: they are delayed by at least a year due to numerous problems with prior examples of the Siemens Venture operated by the Midwest states, California, and VIA Rail, which share common specs. The service introduction of the dual-mode trainsets have been pushed back even further to at least 2027. Amtrak has instead converted Bombardier-Alstom HHP-8 locomotives into Non-Powered Control Units that will replace the Metroliners instead.
APT was serviceable just that BR was weak vs the media. Could of easy improved the concept but nope decide to take the words of journalists rather than work with the project.
@@gerogyzurkov2259They did improve the APT project, the result being the class 91+DVT and mark 4 coaches. They were originally designed to tilt but this equipment was never fitted. The coach profile shows this to good effect.
If anything, it was the design basis for the Amfleet passenger coach, which was NOT a failure and is still used today.
You can still ride on a Budd Metroliner more than 50 years after its debut, albeit as a de-powered cab control car, and the Budd Amfleets that form the mainstay of Amtrak's east coast coach fleet were built using the same stainless steel shells. So, not entirely a failure I would say. That said, this is an excellent well-researched documentary with a wealth of information, much of which I was unaware of before today!
But their age means they will be replaced by Siemens-manufactured coaches over the next several years. I expect Stadler at their Salt Lake City assembly to build new train sets that will replace many of the older passenger train sets in commuter train sets over the next 20-25 years.
@@Sacto1654 The Amfleets are likely going nowhere for at least the next 5-10 years. Probably longer.
For one, the current Airo buy of 487 cars (the 562 figure that's often circulated includes 75 ALC-42E locomotives that are permanently-coupled to the trains) barely replaces the 445 operational Amfleet Is and 29 Metroliner cab cars. There are also 135 Amfleet IIs and 104 Horizons that are currently unaccounted for. Given Amtrak is trying to expand their route network, this would be the wrong time to retire older equipment, especially since they just refurbished the interiors of the whole fleet in the last few years.
Secondly, the Amtrak budget for new equipment is already maxed out, as it's going towards replacing the Superliner I fleet. Those coaches are older than the Amfleet Is by a few years, and have also covered a lot more miles (through much worse conditions no less) due to being on long-distance routes, so they need replacing more urgently. They'd be difficult to repurpose for short-haul work as well, because they're too tall to fit under the wires of the NEC and don't have upper-level accessibility, whereas Amfleets can at least give handicapped passengers access to the whole train as long as there's a wheelchair lift to get them onboard.
Probably most importantly though, Amtrak has lost a lot of faith in Siemens over the last few years. The Charger continues to be incredibly unreliable even two years after entering service - worse than the locomotives they're replacing, in fact - while the issues the Midwest and VIA rail are facing with their Ventures have caused Amtrak to delay the first Airo trainset's delivery by nearly a year as their mechanical department reviews the design and fixes the problems with it. You'd figure that such an experienced manufacturer would know how to make a water system without lead pipes or electronics that don't shake themselves loose from just regular track vibration, but it seems Siemens thought Amtrak was inexperienced with "proper" train design and thought they could scam them. In any case, Amtrak is very unhappy with Siemens at the moment, only moreso because they have no choice but to make it work now.
The plan that the video described, where the first Airos were supposed to be dual-powered sets delivered in 2025, has been scrapped. Now the plan is to dump the first sets that will inevitably have teething issues onto Washington State's Cascades service - in 2026. The battery-powered dual mode sets will be next in 2027, with the overhead wire dual-modes meant to replace Metroliner cab cars have an indefinitely-delayed in-service date. Amtrak has instead converted old electric locomotives into control cars to replace the ex-Metroliners.
Several points come to mind after watching this video:
1. The catenary, that the PRR erected in the 1930's uses contact wires which are fixed to the overhead masts, and not the constant tension systems that most systems use. This means that during hot weather, the wire will droop between the supports and so make it difficult for the pantograph to keep in contact with the wire. Amtrak's Acela sets are restricted to 135 mph between DC, New York and New Haven because of this problem. North of New Haven, where constant tension catenary is used, speeds of up to 150 mph can be attained.
2. The weight of USA passenger rail cars is determined by FRA regulations. Cars have to have an extremely high end-loading capacity in case they collide with freight cars. They do not have crumple zones as most vehicles do in other countries. The weight of the Acela cars is significantly higher than the Bombadier sets they are based on for this reason.
3. The reason that the Swedish Rc4 was successful, and not the French CC design, was because the Rc4 had 4 motors, one per axle, compared to the CC which had mono-motor trucks (bogies) where one motor would drive 3 axles. These trucks had very stiff suspension which was not suited to the tracks in the NEC and would derail easily.
Correct but because of upgrades to catenary Acela can now achieve 150 MPH in New Jersey. Also that regulation making the mark I Acela an overweight TGV has been lifted by the FRA in areas with PTC or Positive Train Control or as in the plans for Brightline West a waiver can be granted for a consist using European standards. In any case the new Acelas, the Avelia Liberty, are much lighter. Of course they still haven't entered service due to Alstom making some frankly bizarre mistakes and taking some regrettable shortcuts. Some these problems also affected the TGV M, Avelia Horizon which has delayed its rollout as well.
@@quayzar1 Thank you for your well thought out response.
I had heard that Amtrak had plans to upgrade the catenary, between New York and DC, but wasn't aware of how much progress had been made. It seems that there is still a lot of upgrade work to be done (Amtrak's budget constraints have meant just carrying out maintenance only, rather than doing upgrades).
What would be the cost of re-building the centenary system on the coridor. We spend over 800 Billion on the military (not that we don't need an Army), just to say.
My cousin was an electrical engineer with the Deutsche Bahn back when they were building the ICE network. He told me they had a lot of problems with certain speeds because the front pantograph would set up a standing wave in the wire which would be back in the "up" phase by the time it got to the back one, causing it to arc.
Although the catenary on the NEC is old, at least many of the poles still have that cool 1930s style look to them. It may not be economical, but building things that not only work well but also look good is a good thing. Modern infrastructure is too often ugly as sin due to cheapness. Bridges, especially.
46:44
This flawed method ultimately lead to why Amtrak hasn't progressed as much as it should've, and why Conrail was allowed to fall so soon after being formed. What should've been regional and national revitalization were really just a way to keep the industry - and thus the economy - from falling apart
I love the Metroliners and the fact they were able to attain true High Speed at all with the time developed is nothing short of impressive. Even moreso given they're heavier construction and much flatter (though still streamlined) ends compared to other HST's. That said, the objective to build and operate them as HST's really killed them in service, and looking back the they would've been served much better as the first dedicated fleet of intercity EMU's. Something akin to Britian's Clacton or Wessex Express sets and their styling walk-through cabs.
I remember taking my family from NYC to Washington and our train caught up with an E-60 pulled train and we went along side by side for a few miles only inches away. What a thrill! On return to NYC, an Amtrak engineer let my young son blow the whistle/horn in NY Penn. Good times back then.
I need to point out that the light weight Budd Poineer III project pre-dated the Metroliner by a decade, but they got no orders from the railroads except in the guise of "Silverliner" MU's for the PRR and Reading. To this day the 1958 Poineer III MU's are still the lightest all metal EMU cars ever Made in north America, clocking in at only 90,000 lbs. The Pioneer III truck is also what went into the 125mph Amfleet cars. So yeah Budd knew how to make a light weight railcar. The 4 test cars T-1 through T-4 were modified Silverliner MUs that used the reliable Silverliner propulsion package from GE.
Unfortunately the 2 preserved Poineer III cars were scrapped by the RR Museum of Pennsylvania because they weren't "popular" enough.
The Pioneer IIIs are probably the lightest MUs built by anyone, anywhere. Their follow on Silverliners ran for decades on SEPTA, in reliable service.
I think this video is a bit unfair to Budd. They knew what to do, but the PRR didn't want the Metroliner project from day one. They only accepted it as a condition to the NYC merger and creation of the Penn Central. The feds had no clue what they were doing. A lot of the issue was the Metros were too complex, too heavy, and ran on crap track. A 125mph top speed and welded track would have achieved more, for less. Married pairs for a high speed train? Nuts!
Budd built the highly successful R-32 subway cars (oldest subway cars in the world when retired!), the hugely successful LIRR M-1s, and the Patco automated cars. They knew how to build electrics.
I have to say that this uploader is top notch. Every vid is very, very interesting & informative. He has read up thoroughly on the subject & the vids are gems and one cannot help watching right through to the end.
To someone who grew up with the end of steam & into the diesel era, they are compulsive viewing. When in my teens, we used to travel the length & breadth of the country by rail with abc, notebooks & biro in our pockets. Marvellous innocent trainspotting days!. If our parents only knew how far & wide we were actually travelling!. It would have been jankers for each one of us.
My gut level guess as to what killed the Metroliner was lack of focus on Track infrastructure improvements, coupled with PRR's horrific financial state.
The Pennsylvania Rail Road and later PennCentral were cooking their books for years so most people at the time didn't even realise how bad things were. I tend to think the Metroliner project would have been handled differently had the true nature of their finances were available. Heck we might have even seen nationalisation.
please never get rid of that mic. I feel like im on youtube on my mom's PC in 2006 watching a 80's docu your work is always extremely well done
The Black Beetle is often misunderstood as an actual attempt at passenger transport. It was never intended to be such. The whole point was to experiment with the effects of very high speeds on existing track. The NYC was interested in knowing how fast the physical structure of the tracks (rails, ties, ballast, etc.) could withstand, provided it was sufficiently straight. The rough ride of the Black Beetle was regarded as acceptable, as long as it didn't damage the track or present an actual safety concern. The whole thing was done on a relatively shoestring budget-the jet engines were second-hand and the windows on the streamlined end were recycled number boards from an EMD diesel. Once it was over, the M-497 was converted back to normal and returned to regular service (the normal diesel engines were disconnected for the tests).
What they learned was that the track could withstand any of the speeds presented (all the way up to 180+ mph) without any real damage, an incredible testament to jointed track that was already suffering from reduced maintenance. Unfortunately, it came far too late in the day, as the NYC was soon to disappear into the ill-fated Penn Central, which meant that the data from the Black Beetle fell by the wayside in favor of the Metroliner.
Had it not been for the merger, it is reasonable to assume that the NYC was looking into something like the British Rail HST. A light, fixed-consist train running at high speeds on normal track propelled by diesel-electrics, likely running on a clock-face timetable.
They had somewhat recently been experimenting with the Empire Service, which called for a single diesel to haul a short train relatively frequently. Unfortunately, an intervention by some in management (seen by the idea's proponents as an act of deliberate sabotage), saw the addition of mail and express cars, slowing the trains and requiring and a second diesel (thereby destroying the economics of using only one engine).
I just realized something. Penn Central RR had to be saved 3 times
1. Metroliner shown here
2. Conrail
3. Amtrak buying Northeast Corridor.
"...what the government was trying to achieve." What were they trying to achieve? The Japanese were building a "bullet train" and some didn't want to be shown up. What was the PRR trying to achieve? They wanted Administration blessing for their merger with the NYC. No Metroliner no merger. No merger no Amtrak. One must be careful of what one wishes for.
And excellent production as always.
The Budd Metroliner was a highly successful train that indeed siphoned off passengers who flew the air shuttles, and got others to look at the train as a viable option in the North East Corridor. I first rode on it as a kid and got to ride up in the cab (110+mph). They were beautiful trains and provided great service.
23:58 That’s Washington Union Station. I’ve seen that exact baggage cart. It’s since been repainted, but it’s still there and still in use!
This was a deep dive into the failures of the Budd company lack of awareness of what they were doing and how inept the U. S. government continues to be. We still have those same issues today. Sad. I love he Metroliners as a kid seeing the commercials. This was a very good video. Cheers!
Sad story. Hell is often paved of good intentions… when you have big aims, you also need the means.
I remember riding in one of the converted metroliner cab cars between Chicago and Detroit on more than one occasion. They were cool because some crews would allow to ride looking out the front window. As for the equipment itself, it should be credited for bringing forth the Amfleet stock that still soldiers on today.
Several things.
@ 23:33, note the mixture of high-level platform behind the train, and low-level in front of it. This was one of the big things with Metroliner-some of the stations (Washington DC, Baltimore, Wilmington, Delaware) did not have high-level boarding platforms, so these were installed specifically for Metroliner services. And in all cases, not all platforms at a station were raised, leading to portions of platforms at Wilmington, and some platforms at DC and Baltimore, remaining low-level. Baltimore is currently undergoing renovation to raise the remaining platforms, and the bulk of DC has had its platforms raised over the years, with the notable exception of the lower-level, through-running platforms, which have to accommodate low-floor Superliner stock. The picture at 23:33 is Washington DC Union Station-detectable by the classical fluted columns supporting the canopies.
In addition, two new stations aimed at the "park-and-ride" (parkway to the British) suburban traffic were built, one on the North side of DC known as Capital Beltway (after the highway it was adjacent to), and the other known as Metropark in New Jersey next to the Garden State Parkway, a busy North-South artery through the state. Capital Beltway has since been replaced by the nearby New Carrollton station, which also provides a connection to the Washington Metro, but Metropark is still in operation, although not every train stops there.
The electrification North of New York City was (aside from the Hell Gate Bridge within the city itself) erected by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad (generally referred to as the New Haven) over a span between 1907 and 1917, making it even older than the Pennsylvania's electrification (though there was a bit of overlap between the two, time-wise). In fact, the New Haven's electrification was actually the very first high-voltage AC rail electrification in the world (with all of the quirks and deficiencies that come from being the pioneer). Its impressive truss portals, provided the inspiration for the popular Erector Set (the US equivalent to Meccano). It was also only one of TWO systems to ever use a triangular catenary design (on the original 1907 western section as far as Stamford). The other was the London, Brighton, and South Coast's system out of London Bridge. Unlike the London system, however, the New Haven's triangular catenary lasted until the turn of this century, when it was finally replaced with modern wiring (albeit re-using many of the old portals). To this day, the pioneering nature of the electrification is one of the many sources of headaches for the State of Connecticut, which owns that portion of the Northeast Corridor as a result of the 1968 transfer of some New York City commuter services to public authorities (other sources are mainly due to insufficient capacity, slow speeds, and decades of deferred maintenance and underinvestment).
The New Haven was also responsible for purchasing one of the Budd company's last few attempts at a new product in the 1950s before public support began to kick in, though it can't be called all that much. The Rodger Williams was basically a set of six RDCs with no cabs on the middle coaches and ends shaped somewhat like EMD cab units (E-units and F-units). It generally hung around in service, with various coaches removed, or regular RDCs added, for several decades, not really making much of a splash.
The last 1950s Budd effort was the Hi-Level car, built for the Santa Fe's El Capitan coach-only budget streamliner. Coaches, lounges, and diners, were built. They were bi-level, with the lower floor dropped down between the trucks, allowing relatively easy entry from low-level platforms and the ground. Passage between cars was on the upper deck, with the area directly over the trucks taken up by diesel generators supplying power for lighting and HVAC. Budd proposed a sleeper variant that would have re-equipped the Super Chief, but the Santa Fe declined. The Hi-Level, however, did directly inspire the Amtrak Superliner 20 years later in the mid 1970s, which improved it by replacing the individual diesel generators with HEP. Budd tried to bid on the project, re-using the existing designs for the Santa Fe, but was rejected due to the design of the sleepers. The elaborate and luxurious rooms (some of them two stories!) planned for the Super Chief resulted in insufficient capacity per car, so Amtrak went with the more conventional, and modest, designs from Pullman-Standard. The Superliner (augmented by a second order in the early 1990s) continues to be the emblem and backbone of Amtrak on all Western Transcontinental routes, and well as the two Eastern routes that can accommodate their height-the DC-Chicago Capital Limited and the Virginia-Florida Auto-Train.
If it hadn't been for the Pennsy's wonderful infrastructure, Amtrak wouldn't have been able to keep up since the 70's on Northeast Corridor modernization work, which led to Acela, eventually.
A recurring problem with the PRR was getting something right YEARS ahead of every one else, and then just not updating with the times and falling behind instead. They set standards, but never refine them like their peers
What Wouderful Infrastucture, it had been falling apart since the End of WW2
@@dknowles60 Specifically on what?
@@wavesnbikes every where over 76% of the Money Conrail spent was rebuilding PRR side, over 60% of the Prr is gone west of Pittts burg Pa
@@dknowles60 Not to mention east of Harrisburg, Pa. That's all Reading, Lehigh Valley, and a bit of CNJ.
I read 'high speed' and 'America' and I immediately think 80 mph, at very best.
well there are recent new sections that are upgraded or upgrading to 110mph sections outside the NEC and the one 140mph section for Acela.
They normally hit 120th service because back then it wasn’t recorded and drivers used to speed up make up for time if they were behind schedule these cars are still in service as cab cars still hitting 110 mph
at least the US and australia have this much in common. Nothing like some "moderate speed rail" to get our minds back to the late 1800's!
@@kineticdeath the sad part is, i doubt intercity & interurban rail travel will have a revival in australia.
On the Northeast Corridor, New Jersey has upgraded their area to allow 150 MPH running, making it the second area on the NEC outside of RI/MA to allow 150 MPH running, only the Acela Express can achieve that, the Northeast Regionals are limited to 125 MPH, with specific services being limited to 110
I rode the Metroliner in the seat behind what was then still called the "motorman" in March of 1969 between the New Brunswick and New Carrilton segments on the SB Metroliner. The trip was flawless. The swivel parlour car seats were wonderful as was the food and drinks. And I road in coach return DC to NYC in '74 (the weekend the Excorcist came out). That journey too was OT and just fine both directions. Perhaps I was just lucky.
Thank you for posting a thought-provoking and well documented video. If I was a member of the Johnson Administration I would first advise to A) send this country's best and brightest rail experts to Japan on a fact finding tour of their Shinkansen Tokaido Line to learn how they were able to implement their project from concept to completion, B) consult with officials of the Budd Company, General Electric, PRR and the Westinghouse companies as to what needs to built/upgraded as to both infrastructure and rolling stock, C) how much funding will be required, D) how many years it will take to complete, and E) how much testing will be required before going into revenue service.
Thank you very much for another excellent video on an aspect of the history of transportation.
The best way to describe the Metroliner program was that it was a commercial success and a mechanical failure.
On the commercial side they did revive passenger numbers on the NEC between Washington and New York. They replaced older cars from the 1950 and in some cases even earlier than that. With their clean modern interiors, comfortable seating and Metrophone radio telephone (an early type of cell phone service) they did draw a lot of passengers away from the Eastern Airline shuttle. They also paved the way for Amtrak's "Amfleet" series of cars. The original order was for 57 unpowered "Metroshell" cars which Amtrak later renamed Amfleet. Amtrak liked what they received and later ended up getting 492 Amfleet 1 cars and 125 Amfleet 2 cars.
On the mechanical side they were far too complicated with the wiring and control systems. Each Metroliner well into the Amtrak era had an onboard technician just to trouble shoot any problems that would come up. Calls of "Metroblue" over the PA or radio were for the technician to come to the lead car and talk to the engineer/driver. Attempts to run 8 car sets resulted in breakers in substations tripping due to the aging substation electrical gear. Another problem was the PRR's variable tension catenary that would sag in the summer heat and be tight as a drum to the point of breaking in the winter. Even today the ACELA trains (a direct descendant of the Metroliner) are limited to 135 MPH under ex PRR catenary account of this. The Metroliners also suffered from poor ride quality due to the fact they had coil springs instead of air bag/bellows suspension. This was done as Budd didn't think Penn Central crews would be able to maintain an air suspension system.
Today one Metroliner car is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania while one of the snack bar cars, now numbered 9800, is used by Amtrak for special events and charter trains. A number of coaches from the 800 to 829 series have been converted to cab cars for use in push pull trains mostly in the east and are numbered in the 9600 series. These cars are the oldest passenger carrying cars in the Amtrak fleet and will be retired when the Siemens Airo trainsets come into service on the NEC in late 2026 or early 2027.
BTW - the ACELA 2 trainsets are just an SNCF TGV M modified for US safety and operating standards. Like the earlier Metroliners they have had lots of problems in testing and have had their in service date pushed back several times. Latest in service date is late this year ... maybe.
What is the problem with the new Acela’s. I’ve seen so many videos of those new trains being tested all over the NEC. What is keeping them for rejected for service
@@MrJimheeren Same issues with the original Metroliner. A struggling manufacturer, signing on to a cutting-edge product in a desperate bid to reverse their fortunes, put on a tight timeline and under an unreasonable cost cap. To be fair to Amtrak, Alstom did it all to themselves by signing a fixed-price contract that was massively underbid - and then made their situation worse by merging with Bombardier - but the myth of European dominance in the rail market is very much dying.
@@GintaPPE1000 I’m sorry say what now, Alstom has been building high speed trains since the 70s. They’ve been making electric trains since the 20s. What makes you think it’s a failing company.
Spain, Korea, China, the Netherlands, Belgium and Morocco have all build their high speed network based on French technology. The fastest train ever build is a TGV. Maybe it’s just America with its shitty rail infrastructure and old wires that prevents this train from performing as it should
@@GintaPPE1000 and isn’t Siemens building like all new Amtrak equipment, Stadler seems to do pretty good as well.
How are those CRRC trains working for y’all oh wait SEPTA canceled the contract and Boston just can’t seem to keep their metro running without delay.
@@MrJimheeren Budd built some of the best trains in the world for 30 years before the Metroliner, and did a thriving export/license business all the way until the 1970s. That didn't stop them from struggling on the project.
Alstom got complacent and let Siemens and Bombardier leapfrog them. They got plenty of HST orders in the last 20 years, yes, but they have all been for more examples of the TGV Duplex they first rolled out in 1995 - sold purely on the fact it was the only double-deck HST available. Everywhere else, they were getting hammered: the AGV that was supposed to be their new single-level HST has been outsold by the N700 almost 3:1, the Zefiro almost 3:1, and the Siemens Velaro by almost 10:1. That led Alstom to first try and buy Bombardier after the latter went bankrupt to acquire the more successful Zefiro, and then to take a more risky approach with the Avelia to try and win back market share. The same issues plaguing the Liberty are also dogging the double-decker Avelia Horizon (TGV M) model meant for SNCF, which is running two years behind schedule as well.
As for Siemens, they are in over their heads, and Amtrak is having major buyers' remorse. The ACS-64s started out great but have been completely ruined by bungled software updates, the Chargers are failing as much as 5x more often than the aging locomotives they're supposed to replace, and the Ventures have a litany of issues ranging from door mechanism failures to lead contamination in the water system. The only reason they haven't bailed is because Siemens is covering all this warranty repair work and paying fines to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.
I'll grant you that the Chinese manufacturers are complete trash, but the Japanese have done much better here. At least issues with the likes of the M8 and M9 actually *get* resolved.
It’s only now that America is finally getting high speed rail in the way of Europe has had for decades, with the various projects ongoing. Brightlines and others are working hard to make HST work.
I really hope the whole Texas Central thing works out. Shinkansen trainsets between Houston and Dallas is peak "King of the Hill is just Texas anime" aesthetics :P
A 50 minute video is a godsend for the six hour drive I have ahead of me. You’re a prince.
I work on the Keystone Corridor as a Conductor with the Metroliner cab cars daily. They’re definitely old, but I love the history. Wonderful and informative video!
“There’s also a reaction [to the Shinkansen] in America. Lyndon Johnson passed the High Speed Ground Transportation Act: ”
_Changes slide_
“…which produced this depressing thing called the ‘Metroliner’…”
-Justin Roczniak, 2020
I've watched a few documentary films about the Metroliner but this is waaaay the best research piece - thank you!
I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs in the 1970s and used to watch the rush-hour action on the Northeast Corridor in Prospect Park, Norwood, and Glenolden. It would be years before I would understand Pennsylvania Railroad vs. Penn Central Vs. Amtrak vs. Conrail, and why there were Metroliners and Silverliners working alongside GG1s and MP54s, and all the could've/should've/would've bungling that took place behind the scenes. Through the eyes of a child innocent to all the politics and other shenanigans, those years were the incubator for my love of trains and I've been involved in the railfanning (or trainspotting) hobby ever since.
Having a President who was a regular Amtrak rider and is keen on improving our infrastructure including massive investment in Amtrak, I am encouraged for the future of rail service here in the US. Now if they'd just allow more time for prototyping and development... 😁
Excellently researched and presented as usual. Thank you, Ruairidh. Simon
I had no idea that the Metroliners were so fast that they literally sucked the windows out of old rolling stock. That’s so cool
Windows which were not fitted very well . . . ?
Absolutely outstanding video documentary. Thank you for taking so much time to deliver this remarkable video!
The federal and state governments were more of a hindrance than a help.Outdated regulations made it impossible for already struggling railroads to adapt to the situation.
Oh please, Penn Central did it all by themselves.
@@MrJimheeren oh please, the government forced them to include the New Haven in the PC merger. Oh please, the government had inflexible regulations enacted in the 19th century that hurt ALL railroads by the 1950s. Oh please! The feds built infrastructure for trucking and autos making railroads (who maintain their own infrastructure on their dime) bleed business. Oh please, most railroads in the northeast went belly up by the 1970s.
One of Shinkansen's inspirations, believe it or not, was the North Shore Electroliner, basically a Zephyr with Trolley Poles.
such underrated content
as a lover of transportation i never thought id find a channel like this thank you !!!
An amazing documentary.
Just one thing bothered my at the end. Many in the US have excuses for why HSR cannot be built there, one of them, especially in the case of the NEC, the "expansive urban development" along the route, which never prevented them when to continuously build and expand highways even though those are much wider and carry far less people. Asia and major central sections in Europe are large, and much denser, urban areas than the NEC and they still build new rail infrastructure.
Apart from that, your video was perfect.
I lived overseas at the time, but I remember reading about these in Model Railroader. Every time I see a Budd car, I instinctively look for the drivers window.
Fantastic as always very informative
@20:20
Interestingly, the 1935 sections of electrification are primarily from Trenton, New Jersey to New York City and Wilmington, Delaware to Washington DC. Philadelphia to Trenton and Philadelphia to Wilmington section were actually electrified even EARLIER as part of the Pennsylvania's suburban electrifications around its home town of Philadelphia. However, these were likely upgraded to handle the additional load of full-size passenger and freight trains in addition to the ubiquitous MP54 (which were often converted from steam-hauled coaches).
It was the MP54 that was almost entirely replaced by the Silverliner II-IV. A very small number of the final MP54E6 variant (given a second rebuild after WWII), with aluminum window frames instead of wood (which meant that they could handle being near a Metroliner), continued to run until 1981. Towards the end of their careers, several MP54s had their motors removed, and were hauled behind GG1s and even occasionally diesel locomotives, although they curiously retained their pantographs to supply heat and lighting.
thank you for making long documentaries. really nice😀
@ 28:41, that is a SIlverliner III (aka the Lateliner). It can be distinguished by the seam in the roof and the more squared off windows. These were actually built by the once-storied Saint Louis Car Co., which had created many impressive streetcars and interurbans over the decades, but was (like the other companies mentioned) distinctly out of touch with the latest technology, and would ultimately shut down in 1974, having gone bankrupt in 1968, just one year after finally delivering the Silverliner III.
(the other Silverliners shown around the same point appear to all be Silverliner IIs)
Those shots were made on the suburban approaches on the West side of 30th Street Station, and do actually represent the path that the Metroliners would have taken on the Harrisburg run. They were taken in approximately 1967, since the Lateliners look brand-new, and are wearing Pennsylvania decals.
The "Suburban Station" mentioned is also known as Penn Center-Suburban Station. Located at 17th Street just a stone's throw from City Hall, it is much closer to the business district than 30th Street. The grade mentioned is the 2.2% climb up from the underground platforms to the bridge over the Schuylkill River and into the high-level platforms at 30th Street (on the other side of the station from this footage). It must be said that the claim of the Metroliner having difficulty on the grade seems a little silly, given that it was designed for the MP54, which marched up and down the grade quite happily for 50 years, and that the grade is half a mile long and reasonably straight, compared to the mile-long, curved, 1.37% grade found in the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel just south of Baltimore Penn Station on the Northeast Corridor. Silverliners, as can be seen, handle the grade without any apparent effort.
The extension of Harrisburg services into Suburban Station was a relic from the Pennsylvania's Victorian-era Broad Street Station, which was a massive (largest single-span train shed of all time) elevated terminal station located next to Suburban Station. However, the operational headaches of running a terminal station at the confluence of three busy through-routes and the massive amount of prime real estate consumed by the station and its elevated approaches (which were nicknamed the "Chinese Wall" by locals) lead to its replacement with 30th Street for through-traffic and Suburban Station for commuter traffic. The location was subsequently re-developed as an office district known as Penn Center (note above).
However, 30th Street was (and still is, to an extant) rather distant from the center of Philadelphia. As a result, the Pennsylvania offered a free transfer to Suburban Station for any ticket bound for 30th Street (although not for then-busy North Philadelphia). This arrangement persisted past the end of the Pennsylvania Railroad and survived the separation of commuter and intercity traffic into SEPTA and Amtrak respectively. However, it may not have survived SEPTA's recent transition away from traditional paper tickets to e-tickets (Amtrak switched to e-tickets several years prior) and implementation of gate lines at Center City stations (including 30th Street). The fact that I don't know this is evidence of just how unadvertised it has been for decades. Putting the Harrisburg trains back into Suburban when they replaced GG1-hauled trains with Silverliners was an attempt to acknowledge the superior location and improve convenience (and therefore ridership).
In the 1980s, Amtrak, trying to save money on maintaining the catenary systems (it inherited ownership of the Harrisburg corridor along with the Northeast Corridor main line) for a relatively small amount of traffic, began using diesels to haul the Harrisburg trains (with coaches). SEPTA, as the owners of the Suburban Station (and the Silverliners), refused to allow the service into the tunnel (which does not have proper ventilation for routine use by diesels and probably doesn't have the clearances for Amtrak's then-locomotive of choice, the F40PH).
Today, Amtrak once again operates service to Harrisburg with electric traction, now often through-routed to New York City (changing ends in 30th Street). The only exception is the once-daily Pennsylvanian, which continues beyond the wires to Pittsburgh, and changes from diesel to electric for the run to NYC in Philadelphia because it is already changing direction there, and Amtrak has shops and a yard in Philadelphia.
One of the main issues for Amtrak on the Harrisburg corridor is the fact that on the Eastern end, between Paoli and Philadelphia, is the oldest part of the Pennsylvania's electrification (1915), which is only now looking to have the major overhaul that it desperately needs. Ironically, the electrification WEST of Paoli to Harrisburg is from 1938, the last main line electrification in the US (aside from a couple of small extensions of commuter lines) until Amtrak electrified the remaining portion of the Northeast Corridor between New Haven and Boston in 2000.
Back on form, after the class 37 video.
This well lengthed video was worth the watch, covering loads of points. Totally enjoyed it, might watch again soon to recap on some of the points.
You have missed a couple of things, I'm afraid.
1) The last experiment that the Pennsylvania did from its own ideas and with its own money was the 1956 Keystone coach ordered from Budd. These were lightweight, tubular monocoque-bodied, Head-End Power (aka HEP, or ETS to the UK)-equipped, intercity coaches. They worked well technically, but were a customer disaster due to their drop-floor center sections (lowered to try to decrease the center of gravity, resemble the then-new split-level house, and be futuristic) forcing passengers to go up and down a set of stairs anytime they wanted to do anything (go to the bathroom, go to another car, embark, disembark, etc.) other than sit in their seat. As a result, only one set of six were ever built (plus the requisite HEP generator car). They were typically assigned to Northeast Corridor or New York-Pittsburgh service. Interestingly, they can be seen at 14:20 arriving in Philadelphia 30th Street Station from the North, as shown by their distinctive window pattern resulting from their split-level design. Being structurally sound, they lasted in service for a while until decreasing ridership meant that there were enough other "reasonably modern" coaches (although all of them were actually up to 40 years older and all equipped with steam heat instead of HEP) to do the job without needing to deal with the hassle of a single set of unique equipment. The actual coaches survived however, and are STILL (iirc) languishing somewhere. Whatever else one might say about Budd, their body shells are almost absurdly durable; there's a reason for the saying "Budd don't break".
2) The Keystone did inspire Budd to come up with an improvement-the Pioneer III (the first pioneer presumably being the original Zephyr, and I guess the second one is either the Dome Car or the RDC). This ditched the drop-floor, and added large-ish new rounded windows and a new light-weight truck design. It was planned to be a whole family, with coaches, sleepers, and diners, but the demand just wasn't there. The only purchase of the original Pioneer III were six EMUs for commuter service by the Pennsylvania, which also represented an experiment in rectifier technology. The bogies, on the other hand, saw some success-the Japanese commuter railways loved them, and derivatives went to Metroliner. The six Pioneer III EMUs of 1958 would be the very last new passenger equipment that the Pennsylvania purchased with its own money.
3) Five years after the Pioneer III debuted, the state of Pennsylvania and the city of Philadelphia, provided assistance through a body known as the Passenger Service Improvement Corporation (PSIC). This was a predecessor to the 1965-founded South Eastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which is usually called by its acronym (and referred to in the video as) SEPTA. The PSIC financed a fleet of 55 new EMUs of an improved design that came to be known as "Silverliners" (as well as the final order for RDCs). Once this name came into being, the Pioneer III units were retro-actively designated "Silverliner I" while the 1963 units became "Silverliner II". It was the Silverliner II body shell that was used to create T1-T4.
3a) Due to smaller motors and other differences, the Pioneer IIIs were not compatible with the Silverliners and the two series (SIlverliner III and Silverliner IV) that followed (these three were all compatible with each other). As a result, they formed an odd duckling sort of situation, running as a single train, generally restricted to rush hour service. This led to their premature (relatively-speaking) demise in the early 1990s. The Silverliner II (and III) continued in service until 2012, representing, in the former's case, a respectable 49 years of service. I remember them well-they were very much a minimalist "tube" inside. The 2x3 flip-over benches were generally rather soft, but were a slightly ugly mix of brown and orange, except for some of the IIIs (also known as the Lateliners due to their late delivery), which were refurbished in 1985 for the new Airport Line by SEPTA with 2x2 bench seating and grey/multicolored fabric. The Silverliner IV, introduced in 1974-75, continues in service as the backbone of the SEPTA regional rail system. It was the Silverliner II (and later III) that ended up taking on the Philadelphia-Harrisburg run in the 1960s-1970s, usually running in single-car configuration, before Amtrak took over this service completely. Although some of these cars (aside from the IVs) originally carried lavatories, they were all locked out of use by the 1990s due to their no longer being used on intercity runs (all SEPTA trips being at most roughly an hour from Center City Philadelphia to their suburban terminal-never mind that some trains run through a-la Crossrail for trips that can total up to two hours, since very few people actually ride that whole way).
4) After the Pennsylvania joined Penn Central and went bankrupt, it, along with the Reading and several other railroads, was merged into the government-backed Conrail in 1976. The exception was the Northeast Corridor, where the trackage was actually transferred to Amtrak (the national intercity passenger rail agency), in return for several years of trackage rights for Conrail's freights. Conrail also inherited the responsibility for operating many of the commuter rail services of its predecessors (as well as the remaining quasi-intercity services of the Reading, which had declined to join Amtrak due to their primarily commuter-oriented nature), with the various regional transit agencies contracting with them to operate the trains. In 1981, as part of a bid to become profitable, and thereby privatize, Conrail ceased providing this service. In several cases, this lead to the local agencies inheriting outright many miles of primarily-passenger trackage in addition any rolling stock that they did not already own. For SEPTA, this was a total debacle, as the end of federal funding, a lack of state support, and the inability of local governments to cover the full costs lead to the end of the ex-Reading "intercity" services (though the longest was only 90 miles), and an attempt to convert to a rapid-transit-style operation met resistance from unions, who would have suffered considerably, leading to a massive strike that devastated ridership. It took many years and a lot of investment (including some emergency interventions to deal with BADLY decayed bridges) to get ridership back up to where it had been (not helped by the elimination of several lines in the 1980s for various reasons). And then COVID hit, disrupting what had been a very traditional, 9-5 office hours-oriented service, slashing ridership AGAIN that has still not recovered fully.
5) Although it did run intercity coaches, Red Arrow Lines was primarily a suburban operation, dating back to a network of four interuban trolley lines radiating out from 69th Street Terminal at the end of Philadelphia's Market Street Elevated line (although the trolleys first ran towards 69th Street with roller signs labeled "Philadelphia", 69th Street Terminal is actually located outside the municipal limits in the town of Upper Darby). While two of the lines, West Chester and Ardmore, were lost to road-widening and car-shortages, respectively, the Media and Sharon Hill lines (as well as the Norristown line that was acquired in the take over of the Philadelphia and Western Railroad in the 1950s) lasted long enough to still be running when SEPTA assumed control of Red Arrow in 1970. While the pre-SEPTA fleet (some of which dated back to the early 1930s) was finally retired in the early 1980s (early 1990s for Norristown, which uses a incompatible standard-gauge third rail setup compared to the broad-gauge overhead setup of the rest of the network), the non-intercity Red Arrow Lines continue in operation to this day.
6) Although you discuss Jenkintown and the West Trenton Line, only the shot at 19:20 is actually ON that line. To be precise, that is Carpenter Siding, located at the North side of Jenkintown station where the West Trenton Line (then known as the New York DIvision) diverges from what was the Reading's Bethlehem Branch and today is known as SEPTA's Main Line (both routes were inherited in 1981). The reason for the testing to occur on the West Trenton Line, is due to it being very flat, very straight, and being the line that serves the Red Lion Plant! It is also where the Pioneer Zephyr was first tested (although Budd was actually at a different plant at the time). The Pennsylvania's Silverliner IIs were also tested here, and photos of them similarly on Carpenter Siding are available on the internet. And when I say "at the North side", I MEAN it-as in "stand on the platform and toss a coin" close (but not quite spitting distance).
How do I know all this? I live a five-minute walk away from Jenkintown station, well within whistle/horn distance. And boy is it weird hearing somebody with a foreign accent pronounce a local name. Let alone the fact that my home town is being acknowledged! Its simultaneously flattering and slightly creepy. I do think you did a pretty good job with both Jenkintown and SEPTA, though. And "Budd" was perfect. Just the way a local would pronounce it.
The Budd LIRR and Metro-North M1/M3 trains didnt fail!! The M3's are still in service today being 40 years old
Wow, I had no idea how convoluted that story had been. And talking about comfort equaled to airlines, my father used to take that train from NYC to Washington DC. He said he could never drink a coffee when it was a full speed because it would never stay put on the table due to intense vibrations.Funny enough, I love those Amfleet II. They're still comfortable today.
As always, an excellent vid from Ruairidh.
The Metroliner cab cars are the last remaining pre-Amtrak equipment on its revenue-earning roster (it has one or two much older cars used for various business purposes). With their retirement, it truly will be the end of an era, with Amtrak (after more than 50 years), finally in possession of a roster that is entirely of its own design and acquisition.
In recent months, Amtrak has been having concerns about the crash-worthiness of the nearly-60 year old Metroliners. This has lead it to pull out from storage its fleet of failed early-2000s HHP-8 electrics, and turned them into un-motored cab units, leaving the Metroliners as merely the last cars of a train on the Keystone Corridor. A somewhat ironic final descent from grace for what was once the ultimate in American Railroading.
While I have never ridden in a Metroliner cab car, I HAVE had a few rides in their close relative, the Amfleet I. And I can honestly say that the ride is superb, the windows (though supposedly small) are quite big enough, and the seats are amazing, both in legroom and cushioning.
Woof. I've certainly written a LOT in response to this movie, haven't i? I suppose that that's what happens when you have a long movie about a topic with which I am both interested, and well-acquainted.
The E-60 locomotives were based on the design General Electric made FOR the BM&LP RR, 33:59 33:59 not BY the railroad itself.
One of the reasons for rough riding was due to track conditions, which in turn was partly due the heavy usage of the NEC by freights, which were (and still are) getting heavier and heavier, thereby putting more and more stress on the track.
Amtrak "solved" this problem by charging what it considered the full price of this wear and tear to Conrail once the latter's free trackage rights expired in the early 1980s. This lead to Conrail massively switching up its operations to avoid the NEC, which in turn lead to the over-burdening of other lines that had never been intended for such traffic while many of the superb "low-grade" lines built by the Pennsylvania to route freight around cities and steep hills, saw a massive reduction in use or even outright abandonment.
Also, another reason for poor track quality is a bit more absurd. Track gangs were paid by the number of ties that they replaced, which meant that they focused on the easiest, fastest ties on the straight sections, instead of the slower, more complex, jobs at switches!
thank you for this amazing video!
It's like we tried once, did it wrong, it didn't work, and we gave up.
36:41
That's not an Amtrak AEM-7. That's an NJ Transit (the transit agency for the state of New Jersey) ALP-44, which is based off of the next generation of Swedish locomotive. The coaches it is hauling are called "Comets".
The SPV-2000 was nick-named the "Seldom-Powered Vehicle". OUCH. The prototype was actually fitted with a very fancy and shiny nose cone while it was testing out of 30th Street's Powelton Yard.
I don't recall if it still had that nose-cone, but I can remember as a young child seeing what looked like a Metroliner (I had not yet heard of the SPV-2000) from far away sitting parked in the middle of the closed Red Lion plant (so named because it sat along Red Lion Road) whenever we had occasion to drive past (something I always treasured since I wanted to get a glimpse of that near-mystical presence). This was the early-to-mid 1990s, before the plant was demolished. Today the site is a bit of a source of contention, due to the chemicals left over from the old plant still being in the soil. There was a golf course there at one point, but it closed.
The R32, like many Budd products, lasted for a very long time indeed, only being retired in 2022! (not that that holds the record-VIA Rail, Amtrak's Canadian counterpart still maintains a large fleet of Budd equipment from the mid-1950s, and shows little sign of replacing them in the near future)
The reason for the tubular cross-section of the Metroliner, and thus the subsequent Amfleet (or "Amshell") and SPV-2000 was ostensibly to mimic that of an airliner. In reality, it was supposed to work in conjunction with the small window size in order to present the smallest possible target for people throwing rocks at the windows, which was a real issue at the time, especially due to the social unrest surrounding the Civil Rights movement and the ongoing urban decay. While the Amfleet II has somewhat larger windows, due to its longer-distance intentions and being built in a more "stable" time, its still not exactly well-lit. Hard to believe that even sixty years later, American rail passengers are still experiencing the echoes of that time. It is only with the replacement by the new Siemens coaches that this will finally come to an end.
@36:39-That's a SIlverliner IV, peeking in on the left. You can tell by the distinctive "blister" or "hump" on the roof for the dynamic brakes.
Budd did have 7 real lightweight cars. Pioneer III originally intended to be coaches but later built as emus. The single coach prototype was 53k lbs while the 6 emus were 90k lbs.
Dedicated high speed lines are the only way to go. It's a long painful expensive lesson for North Americans to learn.
The investment in infrastructure in general is the problem. Tunnel visioning on any one piece of infrastructure is a great way to waste money, you need to assess everything from the open track between cities down to the stations platform tracks in the centre of town and everything in-between. Not to mention that frequency is speed, if you go from one train an hour to two trains an hour, you cut half an hour of journey time for any random combination of departure and arrival times just in time waiting at the station and getting to the destination earlier than necessary. Only building dedicated HSR lines will not at all fix the problem.
Germany has almost exclusively mixed use lines, and they actually work pretty well. The main problem here is just systematic underinvestment of the past 30+ years of conservative government, track abandonment, switch removal and so on that comes with a "fiscally responsible" (read: short term over all else) government.
Mixed use lines can work well if there is sufficient investment and a well thought thru plan for running trains such as passing opportunities and so on. Lower possible peak capacities when running both high and medium/low speed trains however than dedicated lines would have, which can be a significant downside on very busy corridors.
You forgot mention of the United States other high speed project, the Cheseapeake and Ohio Turbotrain which was later taken over by United Aircraft Corporation. The Turbo was way ahead of its time even by today's standards with jacob's bogies, low centre of gravity, lightweight aluminium passive tilting mechanism that actually worked. And being UAC, they used aircraft turbine to power it. To this day, the UAC Turbo Train still has the speed record for a train that went into service at 170.8mph or 272kmh which is better than the original Shinkansen speeds (the Shinkansen saw its speeds increase rapidly after introduction in 1964).
Penn Central purchased a few units for Boston-New York service and Canadian National purchased 7 trains for use on Montréal-Toronto.
You alluded in your video Budd's problems with power systems (due to lack of experience) . Both Penn Central and CN were geared to maintain steam heated trains with recently introduced diesel locos. In fact, the GG1 still had a diesel boiler to generate steam to heat the train. The railroads didn't have what it took to maintain an aircraft (because the Turbo was designed as an aircraft on steel wheels). So there were many teething problems to a point when Penn Central/Amtrak quickly abandonned the train, but CN persevered and after a rebuild of a year or two, the Turbos were put back into service as 3 trains of 9 cars which persevered until the early 1980s. Of course, due to track conditions, its hoped for speeds never materialised, but CN was able to run Montreal Toronto in 3 hours 59 minutes for a while compared to the 5 or 5.5 hours for conventional trains (including current schedules)
Ironically, Amtrak not long later ordered the French RTG turbo trains which got a waiver from FRA to be allowed in North America (including french couplers).
(another comment specific to Budd coming next).
@jfmezei There was a Chesapeake and Ohio steam turbine electric locomotive in the late 1940's. The United Aircraft Turbo train was used on the non-electrified section of the New Haven Railroad (part of the Northeast Corridor)
You’ve missed a few things in the “A Failure Decades in the Making” section.
The Vietnam War wasn’t really a major factor. The government at that time was dumping vast amounts of cash into all sorts of things, like the Space Race and the Interstate Highway System.
In fact, that highway system was actually a far larger issue than Vietnam. It constituted an immense indirect subsidy given to motorists and trucking companies in the form of federally-funded highways that they didn’t have to pay to use. It was those highways that really decimated the railroads’ freight and passenger business (especially the highly profitable less-than-carload freight) which ultimately robbed them of the money that they needed to invest in improvements or even maintain their existing infrastructure.
That, combined with the ICC’s rate regulation, is why there wasn’t more investment from the railroads in passenger train tech. That’s why the infrastructure was so old. They simply didn’t have the money. And those two reasons are why the Pennsylvania Railroad was in such financial trouble that it undertook that disastrous merger with the New York Central that ultimately destroyed both companies. And it’s why there were also so many other bankrupt railroads rolled into Conrail.
Budd contracted with GE and Westinghouse because they had the expertise in electrical engineering required to design the electronic components and Budd didn’t. It’s that simple.
The highly rushed development of the Metroliners also contributed substantially to the technical issues. If they had had five years to stabilize the design and produce the trains instead of the 18 months originally demanded, they would have been able to properly develop, test, refine, and integrate the various technologies instead of having to throw together a train very quickly and then try to fix the resulting deficiencies as they went.
LOL "micro electronics" like this here gigantic punch card machine.
To be fair punch card machines were standard I/O peripherial devices at that time still - despite teletype terminal becoming standard increasingly.
I think the University of Karlsruhe/Germany kicked out their last card puncher in 1986.
@@MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl My parents ware computer programmers. I remember all these machines very well. It's just when they say "Micro" it's kind of funny because today you have a tiny little card the size of ur pinky finger nail that has more data on it than an entire warehouse of these punch cards.
@@FenderBender5150 I agree. The progress has been absolutely fantastic during the last 5 decades. I was learning programming in Fortran77 on a mainframe computer and did actually some calculations with scientific function libraries on it. Today many smartphones are much more powerful than that IBM 3090 was programming then.
@@FenderBender5150 And may heaven help you if you dropped a deck!
Amazing. I lived through this time and had no idea that trains were capable of these kinds of speeds.
It’s too bad that this doesn’t include mention of the next chapter of NorthEast Corridor trains. Since 2000, the Acela trains have continued the competition for travelers. 2/3 of commuters now use the train instead of airline shuttle service. Pretty amazing. And the revenue from the Northeast Corridor provides the plurality of Amtrak income.
Over the past 15 years, most of the rail has been converted to continuous welded, ostensibly for the high speed trains, but also making for a much nicer ride for all the trains. (Probably helps with speed and wear & year too).
Acela has always had a problem with development along the route, and a plethora of grade crossings requiring them to run at conventional speed for much of the Boston to DC trip. But they do get up to 160 mph now in a section of New Jersey and 150 mph in Massachusetts.
In a weird rebranding, the existing Metroliners were renamed Acela, and the high-speed trains called Acela Express. It caused terrible confusion, but probably achieved the goal of people buying Metroliner tickets (called Acela) thinking they were getting a 150 mph trip for a great price. Only the really expensive tickets were for the actual “Acela Express.” Practically no passenger understood the names.
@4:45 - When referring to funding dispersed by the US Government, it is generally advised to say "federal funds" as opposed to "state funds", since the latter implies that the funds came from the individual state governments (Pennsylvania, New York, etc.). States funding infrastructure projects is far from un-heard of in the US-California is putting forward its HSR project at this time, and today, many different states have their own assorted state-funded rail projects. While rail projects funded by individual states would be almost unheard-of in the 1960s, projects in other areas (highways, airports, harbors, some industries) would be quite common.
A minor correction at 41:25: while France did eventually spend large amounts of government money to build out the TGV network, the original development and the first line was funded entirely by the nationalised railway SNCF, and was viewed sceptically by the then (right-wing) government.
One way or another, SNCF has been heavily subsidised for decades . . .
@@EllieMaes-Grandad Your point being?
Excellent, as always. Very comprehensive and gives a lot of new information on why it wasn't as successful as it could have been. A lesser specification may well have been achievable but then when politicians start butting in everything goes pear shaped!
Aye. A bit like when politicians chose the Boeing 2707, over the far more credible Lockheed L2000 🤔
Yes, unfortunately the Metroliner was no great sucess unlike the APT-E, with its clever power car in the center, prohibiting passengers to pass through, while causing them to vomit with its brilliant tilting system. A magnificent achievement indeed.
@7:15 The Zephyr was not actually the first all-stainless steel vehicle. Budd built a few stainless steel railcars for a couple of nearby railroads before it, though they were regarded as only moderately successful, due in part to the use of pneumatic tires licensed from Michelin and their pneumatic railcars in France.
And I wouldn't regard the Zephyr as any sort of "crowning achievement", since (aside from the aforementioned railcars) it was really Budd's FIRST foray into rail. It was the Zephyr that really introduced Budd to the rail industry, and the rail industry to Budd.
train video, lovely 🤩
We like to talk very favourably about German high-speed rail, but let's not forget it took us until the early 70s to introduce a service that rarely reached 120mph on some connections, if at all. Even since the introduction of ICE class trains in the 90s, our high speed network has remained a patchwork of dedicated HS tracks, followed by hundreds of kilometres of commuter train performance.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious... the political and other dreamers thought that they could import European and Japanese type rail equipment directly. Overlooking the detail that North American railroading is stunningly different in almost every regard. From commandeering dedicated rights of way, as European and Japanese systems were able to do, to meeting North American safety and reliability standards, which the European and Japanese systems did not have to do (and still don't, to this day), to an almost complete lack of government interest in providing adequate funding (a similar problem bedeviling the HS2 project in the UK), the project was pretty well doomed from the start.
I had not previously heard that Budd was involved in developing the JNR Bullet Trains, although I had heard that they had been involved in early disc-brake testing and sales.
I'm loving everything you say and your wonderful accent! There's a lot of very sad people out there ain't there? X
The absolute best video on you tube .
At 32:30, notice all the dents in the front of the modified Amtrak Metroliner pictured there. The 1970s saw an epidemic of people throwing rocks at trains.
I love how their pantographs )the square ones= look 100% similar to those deployed by the USSR in the 80æies and are still being used today.
The original Shinkansen was initially a financial disaster that was only built because Japanese National Railways was hiding the true cost. And JNR eventually was privatized in the 1980s after its debt swelled to >$150 billion. I’m not saying it was a bad investment, but it’s important to consider the politics. Even JNR literally had to lie about the price tag - to a population that was willing to invest in railways at almost any cost.
Tis notable too that JNR - like BR in the UK - was a loss making disaster in general from postwar beginning to end... *but* it had a surprisingly competent offspring in JR.
If only the UK had adopted in 1994 the Japanese rail re-privatization model, instead of the worst-of-both-worlds Swedish model 🤦♂️)
@7:45 - Interestingly, Budd stainless steel was never applied to the Shinkansen itself, iirc. It went into the commuter stock various private regional operators.
Well, I like the steam punk look.
The most important mistake in my opinion is that all attention was centred at trains which could do 160mph. But that makes as much sense as Ferrari building cars which are able to go over 200mph which you can reach almost nowhere are roads aren't suited or do not legally allow such speeds.
HSR has to be developed as a system, that includes infrastructure, signalling and rolling stock.
The lines where the Metroliner had to run on hadn't power supplies powerful enough, had slower trains interfering with operations, drivers had to rely on trackside signals at such speeds and scary enough many level crossings in a country where as we know the obedience for the crossing signals isn't the highest.
From this standpoint alone it was doomed to be a failure.
Then the stock itself had to be designed with a general lack of modern engineering principles for HSR, the trucks under the Metroliners are simply old commonwealth style trucks developed in the early 1930s with some dampers added to try to keep them in control. There were much more modern designs of bogies like the swing arm and flexicoil types, or air cushions which could have been used and would have given a much smoother ride.
Amtrak finally had to order locomotives from Sweden to get reliable thyristor technology, and ASEA/ABB jumped in to help local manufacturers to get grips on this.
Today is no different, while American railroad technology may be good in hauling vast amounts of freight, for modern high speed passenger rail Siemens has jumped across the pond and gets a sturdy foot in that market today.
Me: casually watching the date get closer and closer to PC xD
Just imagine how the this program would have been different if GE, EMD or ALCO designed the trains instead. . .
Lol
This vid has some great footage of the Northeast Corrodor. LOL I rode Amtrak a lot and recognize some of that track!
Informative :)
Very interesting video. But it was more correct to remember the succesful Italian tilting train Pendolino than the British APT (that was a tragic failure) at the beginning of it...
If the PRR had been able and willing to upgrade parts of the Northeast and Keystone Corridors, and the target date for service had been moved back to 1971 or 1972, I think the Metroliner would have had a better chance for success, even at speeds higher than 125 mph, and this could have kept Budd around long enough to make a better SPV-2000 that could economically run trains on lines of light traffic and possibly caused an earlier restoration to many passenger routes.
At least they were able to run trains between Washington and New York faster than modern schedules can today.
I saw a diesel bud coach operating in South Korea!
I also wonder if the fact its not streamlined visually had something to do with it's failure. For the most part, it looks like a set of subway cars. I could easily imagine a first time rider seeing the train for the first time, and just immediately believe its not faster than a plane.
Makes one wonder why they didn't consider a Closed Formation train setup instead (a power car on either end, with unpowered coaches in-between), like what the UK ended up developing with the *InterCity 125* .
Heck; or why AMTRAK never approached BR in the '80's re' a production licence for the InterCity 125, or even the 225 of a few years later if they had to have an electric train.
(AMTRAK did have a tentative order for the I.C.E. after all, before the catastrophic Eschede crash killed all credibility of it and DB's overall attentiveness to safety)
Used a collosal amount of power when doing 160mph because of the electronics, nothing to do with the house brick aerodynamics then?
"A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one." That was my reaction when I saw which channel this was from.
They should have definitely focused on building EMUs capable of 125mph and adapt the infrastructure (both track profile and electrically) as much as possible to that speed target.
They could've tried making it pointy you think
They wanted it to be a walk-through cab, jolly silly idea.
@@user-sd3ik9rt6d no it wasn’t that they were trying to make it way more advanced. The o series was designed after a plane and a birds nose combined. They were still issues with the design because when they used to leave the tunnels, they used to cause a sonic boom when they used to leave it the Metroliner designed basically round cylinder with a slanted front to create wind cutting instead of a flat face if you look at photos of the car, the cars are way more rounder than zero series which only its nose is rounded the sides are completely flat
The train still hit 164MPH with a “flat” nose, because the actual edges where most of the drag is actually created were still rounded. Until the 300KPH+ era, streamlining was for aesthetics and modernity more than performance benefit.
I think it looks cool
@@GintaPPE1000 Streamlining at front and rear of 1930s LNER trains made a difference above 70mph . . .
The lack of streamlining relative to any other train operating at more than 125 mph is astonishing! I've never found why.
Interesting video. Ummm, I am no rail designer, or engineer nor do I claim expertise in that field, but smaller, lighter, less complex units could have been built that would have overcome the issues that were encountered? Or maybe even railbuses?
So basically the PRR(Pennsylvania Railroad) knew that Budd company history would eventually come back and haunt them and PRR basically said that we need to start small rather than go big or go home. Sometimes the government needs to listen to Railroad Companies that actually knows what there talking about
“Budd company history?” The company had a long history of high quality and competent engineering. What the PRR was worried about was the ambition of the Metroliner project versus the schedule and budget outlined by the government for the job - they knew Budd wouldn’t have time to do full testing or technology validation.
The problems trace back to the usual US government attitude of setting gold-plated requirements, while also demanding it be done yesterday and trying to nickel-and-dime the budget the whole way. Demanding everything and getting nothing as a result.
Put this way: if it were a Budd problem, we wouldn’t have seen a repeat of this with the Acela Express, or be seeing the same issues with everything Amtrak is buying now. The Venture sucks, the Avelia Liberty is a disaster, and the Chargers are broken - meanwhile the ex-Metroliner cab cars, shorn of their troublesome propulsion equipment, are still in reliable daily service.
@@GintaPPE1000the cab cars are braking down that’s why more and more are being run with an acs64 at both ends
@@GintaPPE1000also the chargers reliability has gone up over time it’s a relatively new train so ofc it will have it issue
@@sweetmyth2537 Nope. What happened was a spaghetti code update broke the ACS-64’s multiple unit functionality, so they couldn’t run with any other equipment besides other locomotives on the same software version. Now that Siemens fixed the software the Keystones are being run with a Metroliner cab at one end and a Sprinter at the other again - although yes, they are getting too old to be worth further repair and will be replaced soon.
As for the Charger, yes, it’s getting better, but it was so abysmal to start with that “greatly improved” actually just means “breaks down at the same rate as locomotives on their last legs after 25+ years of abuse instead of 5x as often.” Amtrak’s E60s and SDP40Fs were at least able to match the reliability of their predecessors in spite of their issues.
@@GintaPPE1000remember the charger is a different beast than the current equipment. Also the examples you use are already being used before being modified for passenger service. While the Chargers are completely new to the operations in the states, so of course they will have issues.
Recently took a trip to New York from Harrisburg on the Keystone Service and on the return trip rode in one of the old metro liner cab cars. Have to say that imo it was better than an Amfleet 1 even though they are largely identical. It’ll be sad seeing them replaced by another homogenized Siemens product
The German Inter City Express is called I.C.E. not ice.
You do you.
It is ironic that metroliners had roughly the same time as PRR express trains of the 50s the running time by Amtrak is over 3 hours today, almost no progress sadly enough,
(Hardly any American airlines used the Vickers Vicount, which proved to be just another British aircraft failure that lead to that country's air industry's ruination. But the 'author' here did feel a need to plug his own land.)